Kindergarten and PreK for Ages 4-6:

Fireflies (Ages 4-5) 8:30-3:30 T + Th $650 mo

Kindergarten Dragonflies 8:30-3:30 (1:30 F) M W F $975 mo

Combined 8:30-3:30 (1:30 F) M - F $1,485 mo

Tuition is September through June. The annual tuition is paid over ten monthly payments.

Fireflies is a nature-based class for 4 and 5 year olds. The class meets Tuesdays and Thursdays from 8:30-3:30. Our seven hour day includes a three hour outdoor exploration and four hours split between the classroom and the back yard. Four and five-year-olds play in nature together learning social skills, music, art and storytelling. We emphasize creativity, imagination and social emotional play. Students should be at least four by Sept 1 to enroll.

Dragonflies is a part time Kindergarten that meets Mondays and Wednesdays from 8:30-3:30 and Fridays from 8:30-1:30. Modeled on the concept of outdoor kindergarten, our class meets twenty hours a week splitting time between Foothill Park, Commonwealth Lake, and our beautiful nature inspired classroom and school backyard. Our curriculum flows through the seasons of the year while studying literacy, STEM, music and art. Our “Friday field days” are spent mostly outside taking our baked goods and puppet shows into the meadows and forests before our early release at 1:30. Through collaboration and cooperation, our students emerge from the year with the help of our highly experienced and trained staff ready to embark on first grade. Students should be five by Sept 1 or an approved older four year old age exception to enroll.

Dragonflies and Fireflies can be combined. Your five year old can attend Forest Friends five days a week with early release Fridays. On MWF, they grow cognitively and academically. On T/Th, they combine with four year olds in a mixed age class that goes on extended hikes and focuses on building emotional intelligence while celebrating imagination. Be a “Fire Dragon”!

Students go outside everyday in appropriate gear that allows them to explore in all weather. About half of every day is spent outside. We hike and enjoy free play and we garden. Inside our classrooms we feel tucked away in a nest filled with books and art and puppets and baking. About 12-15 students will share their day with a teacher and a teacher assistant.

Every morning we enjoy hot oatmeal with protein, followed later with a second snack that is a protein with a fruit or vegetable. Forest Friends provide these snacks including occasional class baking projects or items made from our modest garden. The class also receives a mix of nuts and seeds and dried fruits with water while hiking. All students bring a lunch from home which will be refrigerated and can be heated at meal time.

Our focus is on learning routines and social skills in a homelike classroom that encourages imagination and wonder. Forest Friends is Waldorf-inspired and nature-based. We ask that school time be a relatively media free zone so that characters like superheroes and and characters be limited to home time. What rule would you make if you were a king or queen or president? What powers would you have if you were a super hero? We ask that all students have safe bodies and safe words. We encourage and celebrate diversity and shared experiences. We offer optional home visits in the fall in the Waldorf tradition.

We begin and end the year with a family picnic at the park three blocks away. We celebrate Fall equinox with Lantern Walk for an hour at the Commonwealth Lake at sunset by candle light. We gather again for Spiral Walk in December to celebrate Winter Solstice which is to say we honor the changing of the seasons and the time of year when family can come together to notice another year has passed and to make a wish. We celebrate spring on May Day with a May pole. We have a two week winter break and a one week spring break that matches the Beaverton School District Schedule. We are closed for Labor Day, Veterans Day, Martin Luther King Jr Day, Presidents Day and Memorial Day. We close for weather if Beaverton Public Schools are closed.

Families are encouraged but not required to participate in the classroom as a parent helper. This may be an hour or two a month and we invite you to join us on or near your child’s birthday. We wish to have the class feel like a community that includes our babies and siblings and adults including grand parents when local or visiting.

Daily Rhythm:

In our Dragonfly Kindergarten, we gather for half an hour outside in the mornings. Our day starts with a morning circle time where we sing and make wishes for our day. After a breakfast snack, we have art, story time, music, nature knowledge, plays and puzzles. A second snack finds us headed outside for free play in a space designed to encourage curiosity and experience and exploring the gifts of nature. We focus on STEM and literacy skills before lunch is enjoyed inside. During table time, we may collaborate to publish a class alphabet book or make our own gingerbread books with a felt cookie that moves through the book as each page is turned. In our final outdoor segment, we will play at the water table where we can design bridges and dams and learn about inclined planes and fulcrums before visiting our small garden to tend to the plants and taste our way to pick up time.

Mondays and Wednesdays are seven hour days that move through the routine of each academic and cognitive subject while learning through a lens focused on nature. Friday field days are five hour days that conclude our week when we make our baking project in the morning and take it on a journey to the forest. There, the story we have been learning becomes a play we act out in a meadow and our math work is practiced next to the stream.

The Tuesday/Thursday Firefly class heads outside for a two-three hour adventure just after oatmeal. We hike through Foothill Park and Commonwealth Lake Park and the neighborhood a one block radius around those parks. Some days our outside time will involve a long walk sighting occasional geese and blue heron and ducks and nutria. Some afternoons take us to a hiking path with little muddy hills perfect for sliding down or to act out the three pigs in the woods with puppets and a game of wolf tag. Students in this class must have listening skills and impulse control that allow them to stay with the group and follow instructions to participate.

Ours is a child led philosophy. We believe children at this age are creating a social emotional foundation that will serve them through out their life time. It could not be more important to learn emotional intelligence and self regulation. Many students today can benefit from tools that help them with different aspects of sensory integration. As their fine motor development naturally progresses, we support and encourage their interest in pre-literacy and STEAM (Science Technology Engineering Art and Math) skills.

”Play is the work of the child.” -Maria Montessori

Who Attends?

-Some Dragonfly Kindergarten students also join our Forest Friends Firefly class on Tuesdays and Thursdays which is especially helpful to a family whose work schedule requires full time care.

-Some Dragonfly Kindergarten students attend a language school, different outdoor school, or homeschool on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

-Some Dragonfly Kindergarten students spend the alternate Tuesday or Thursday with a parent, local grandparent or nanny. This is a great time to schedule weekly visits to the parks and libraries their older schedules will not allow.

-Some Dragonfly Kindergarten students are 5 by Sept 1 or an approved age exception. Most will progress to first grade and some will take a second year of kindergarten (with Forest Friends or elsewhere) because their birthday falls short of the Sept 1 deadline.

There are no fund raising or work party commitments. The annual tuition for your child includes parent coaching sessions you can choose to avail yourselves of if you wish. It is no small task to escort these young ones through their childhood and it is nice to receive some support in that process. It is also marvelous to land in a community of like minded parents who often end up forming meaningful friendships along side their preschooler.